Traffic calming a “waste of money”

MEARNS Community Council have attacked the traffic calming measures proposed for Laurencekirk, with one member labelling them “a waste of money.”

The waste of money allegation was made by Mr Jim Stuart who added: “How calm do we have to be?”

Proposals for speed cushions along Johnston Street were ridiculed, with Mr Stuart saying that it was getting along the street due to parked cars that was the problem, not speed.

Mr Stuart said: “This money should be directed elsewhere.”

Aberdeenshire Councillor George Carr commented: “We don’t want to spend money where it is not wanted. I want to be able to say (to colleagues) that there is support for what is proposed.”

Speeding in Garvocklea Gardens was acknowledged as an area where there might be a problem and member Denis Bell said that young women going through the estate taking their children to school in the morning were the worst offenders.

Mr Stuart and Mr Bell will join forces to write a letter saying which of the proposed traffic calming measures are supported or otherwise.

Mr Stuart said a 20 mph limit across the whole of Laurencekirk would be the best solution.

Councillor Carr said this was not possible at the moment, but he conceeded that going from 30 mph to 20 mph and vice-versa caused confusion.

A new traffic management scheme for Laurencekirk came into force on July 29, with yellow lines at or near most of the junctions in the town.

Mr Stuart took issue with the situation at Conveth Place, where drivers, secure in the knowledge that there are no parked cars round the corner, are failing to slow down at a blind bend.

“There is going to be an accident sooner or later. There are no parked cars to slow the traffic down, so they are taking that corner a lot faster.

“It was poor judgement to put yellow lines so far down that road.”

Hilda Kerr said that at the same location, the refurbished Dickson Hall is very busy, yet it has no parking facilities of its own.

Mr Stuart is to include his observations on Conveth Place in his letter to the local authority.